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After turning New York City’s Irving Plaza into a gaudy-awful yup-hub, concert giant Live Nation is setting its on sites on L.A.’s Hollywood Palladium:
…the 66-year-old Art Deco palace on Sunset Boulevard that has hosted legends from Frank Sinatra to the Grateful Dead, will get a top-to-bottom renovation by a new operator and reopen next year. Live Nation, the Los Angeles-based live music company, said Wednesday it plans to invest “millions” in a more than yearlong renovation as it enters a 20-year lease on the concert hall…
The theater opened Sept. 23, 1940, with performances by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Frank Sinatra. Over the years, it has played host to the Emmy Awards, the Grammy Awards, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Barbra Streisand and hundreds of others.
Live Nation said it would renovate the 4,000-capacity live music venue and reopen it in September 2008. It plans a major upgrade to the stage infrastructure to accommodate larger productions and an overhaul of interior and exterior areas to bring the hall up to date while preserving its “original aesthetic integrity.”
Other improvements include doubling restroom facilities and putting them in more easily accessible locations, modifying the auditorium to provide better views from all areas, doubling the amount of back-of-house space, and increasing the number of beverage sale counters.
We haven’t been to to the Palladium in years, so maybe some our of West Coast readers can let us know what shape the venue is in these days. But we can’t remember the last time we stood in the back of a concert hall and thought, “Band’s great and all, but boy, I’d love me some extra beverage sale counters.”
New operator plans to renovate Palladium [LA Times]
Earlier: The Fillmore New York Sign: It Sure Is Bright, Isn’t It?
i’m so perplexed about the state of live music today. i understand it’s all money-grubbing but sometimes i get caught up. when the YYYs played McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn with Sonic Youth, i was totally pumped for the show. it was an abandoned pool where a little girl had drowned (creepy but definitely cool) and the tickets were only $30.
little did I know, Live Nation was behind the event and the proceeds would go to rip down the venue and build it back up with some glorified new dumpster. in short Live Nation is a tricky mother fucker and i hate them. they will systematically take over and destroy every cool music venue in the United States. i hope the Taliban does something about this.
Last I heard, they were going to tear it down and build a huge condominium and retail complex. This is much better. I’m guessing it will end up surviving like the Cinerama Dome. Surrounded by other buildings but alive and better off.
Yeah, maybe House of Blues can put a roof on The Gorge next! That’ll teach all the whiny asses.
As long as they stay away from the Bowery Ballroom, they can have Irving Plaza.
And Maxwell’s. That place almost went under once in 1997-1998, when management changed hands and the menu briefly included “Alternative Pale Ale” and a “Pasta Frenzy!” If LiveNation gets its hands on Maxwell’s and labels it, like, “Fillmore Hudson,” that would suck.
I gotta admit, my memories of the Palladium, while including many great shows, are highly colored by the fact that frankly it was a terrible place for the acoustics alone. In a vague ‘well that’s too bad’ sense I’m not pleased about this but beyond that, to heck with it.
Every time I went to the Palladium, I always had a horrible experience. Almost anything would be an improvement on that place.
i think that’s where i saw the crowd lined up for silverchair a few months back
Nobody good plays the Palladium anymore. It’s about to be engulfed by a giant shopping mall-and-condo development, I think, which led to the confusion (and coninciding apathetic shrugs from most people) last year that it was to be torn down entirely. But really, no one cool plays there. The Fonda, the El Rey, the Greek (in the summer), and the Wiltern get all the good shows, and I’m assuming the Palladium is upgrading to try and compete.
If one wants to get a feel for the interior, it was used in Janet Jackson’s “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” video by Mark Romanek to stand in for the South African club.
One of my first shows ever was at the Palladium for Garbage’s Version 2.0 tour. And then I didn’t see another show there until last year when I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and the Faint on separate occasions. The place was definitely showing its age, but I never thought the sound or sightlines were bad. I liked how spacious the floor was. But it was always hot as hell in there though.
To echo previous commenters, I’m glad they’re not tearing it down to make condos or parking lots.
Palladium. There is nothing LiveNation can do to make it WORSE.
* The sound sucks
* The views suck (from any side angle or more than 10 people back)
Beyond that it doesn’t matter that I have to walk upstairs to a bathroom and really there are two bars right outside the music hall. The merch set up at the entrance isn’t ideal due to congestion but again when PJ Harvey played there a few years back I didn’t buy tickets and that’s saying a lot. Upgrade the soundsystem LiveNation.
Isn’t that what MusicTown wanted to do to Empire Records?
Sarahrose, check out http://www.poolaid.org, they are trying to get Live Nation out of the pool.
Such an utterly horrible company.